The proposed move of the UP Power Transmission Corporation Limited to go for a conductor which increases line loss for its Rs 10,000-crore transmission line has evoked sharp criticism from various quarters.

On Monday, TOI reported that the corporation had revisited its own four-month-old order to use only ACSR conductors and instead was ready to settle for even AAAC despite the fact that the former managing director of the UPPTCL, Avnish Awasthi, had rejected the latter.

Meanwhile, an internal report from Paschimanchal transmission unit, which used the AAA conductors in its 220/132 kv transmission lines, has confirmed that these conductors not only had high resistance, but also they 'sagged' over a period of time. Informed sources said that these conductors, which were used in transmission lines around Ghaziabad, performed poorly. This was essentially because of less tensile strength of aluminum which is used in the conductors. One can assume what will happen to the conductors which will used in 765/400kv transmission lines.

The report points to the fact that often poles had to be installed to stretch the sagging wires back to their shape. On other times, the wires had to be snapped and stretched accordingly to make them workable. That is not all. The conductors proposed by Isolux, the Spanish company which had been allotted the work, too, did not adhere to the ones specified by central electricity authority (CEA).

A communication from UPPTCL said that the resistance of conductors proposed by Isolux was even higher than the one specified by CEA. While the one specified by CEA has the resistance of 0.0568 ohm, the one proposed by Isolux was 0.0598 ohm. This would actually result in line losses, eventually causing losses to the state exchequer.

The conductors proposed by Isolux did not qualify on the issue of breaking load (The stress which, when steadily applied to a structure, is just sufficient to break or rupture it) front, either. While the CEA guidelines suggest conductors to have the load of 167.99 Kilo Newton (KN), the one proposed by Isolux have 158.66 KN.

The report added that the parameters of conductors as submitted by the company on July 19 did not conform to any particular Indian Standard and have been chosen arbitrarily''. More over, the performance of the lines with AAAC conductors is not time tested under Indian conditions as no 765 kv line has been constructed using AAAC conductors either by Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) or any state transmission utility.

Following the report published in TOI, the UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhogta Parishad has petitioned the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) alleging that it was a conspiracy to benefit the company. President of the parishad, Avadhesh Kumar Verma, said that eventually the losses incurred to the state would be passed on to the power consumers in the state.

General secretary of UP Rajya Vidyut Parishad Abhiyanta Sangh, OP Pandey, demanded that the state government should cancel the agreement for the AAAC conductors. He said that the overall loss to the state exchequer just by way of line losses would be to the tune of at least Rs 6,000 crore. That too when one takes into account the current cost of power purchase,'' Pandey said.

Secretary general of All India Power Engineers Federation, Shailendra Dubey said that the state government should get an inquiry conducted into the whole agreement.

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